Paella

Never made one before. Had it at Cigala last week and it was great. Cigala is a lovely Spanish Restaurant in Lambs Conduit Street, with a wonderful view of A France & Son Funeral Parlour

This is the restaurant not the funeral parlour


Here's the funeral parlour not the restaurant. They do a wonderful nativity scene in December, which the Missus likes to view whilst chowing down on a seafood paella. 

Anyway, thought I'd give it a try. As is my wont, I looked up various recipes and then decided not to do any of them, but had the gist by then.

First stop: get a paella dish. I am sure you can use a frying pan, but don't have a very large one. So off I go to Muswell Hill and find myself in a lovely authentic little shop called "The Isawucoming Cookshop and Scullery for Idiots who go Shopping in Muswell Hill".

Oh joy: they have Paella pans. They show me one. I couldn't believe it. I mean, you could use it for the four man bobsleigh in the next Winter Olympics.

AAAAGhhhh!! A lobster's just grabbed my balls!!!

Anyway, after much discussion and haggling and lectures about Artisan Paella dishes (I want to cook with it not fecking paint with it) I settle on a small, uninteresting two handled non-stick very un-artisanal looking thing like a flat-bottomed wok. £20. Sold.


Seriously, I'm really dull

I go to Walter Purkis for the seafood.


Sorry mate. Monkfish went by 7.00 this morning, It IS Muswell Hill after all.

I settle on squid, good sized tiger prawns, mussels.

I also ask for some bones and they give me a huge bag of flatfish carcasses.

I make stock from the bones with a little white wine, leeks, fennel, carrot, peppercorns, celery. Cooked the mussels quickly in the stock. I blacken red peppers, peel and cut into strips.

I put an enormous lump of butter with a little oil in the pan, let it just begin to brown, then add finely sliced garlic for 20 seconds, then finely sliced leek and let it fry for about 10 minutes till nice and sweet. Then a handful of frozen petit pois, the pepper strips, the squid (gutted and cut into thick rings, plus of course the best bit - the tentacles), some smoked paprika, soaked saffron strands, a handful of little prawns from the freezer, and plenty of black pepper.

Cooked it all for a few minutes, then added 400g of paella rice, gave it a good toss, then 1 litre of the fish stock plus a couple of teaspoons of Marigold veg stock powder for seasoning. I don't generally measure stuff, but important here to get the rice/stock ratio just right as once the stock goes in, you really should not touch it again.

Cooked it for 6 minutes, then added the mussels, and arranged the whole tiger prawns in a nice circle all pointing the same way and pressed them into the briskly bubbly stock.

Turned the heat down a bit and did NOTHING to it for 14 minutes, then turned it off and left it covered for a further 5 minutes.

I must admit that I did try it just before the cooking finished and the rice did not seem quite cooked, but after the crucial 5 minute leaving, it was spot on.

Garnished with a few more red pepper strips and a sprinkling of parsley for colour.

Looked magnificent, and tasted fantastic. Dead artisanal


There were a few leftovers